System and Method for Archiving Objects in an Information Store

1. A computer-implemented method for restoring archived data, the method comprising: selecting an indicator, or receiving selection of the indicator, wherein the indictor is associated with a data item, wherein the data item is stored in a secondary storage device, wherein the indicator is stored in a primary storage device, wherein the primary and secondary storage devices are coupled via a network, wherein the indicator includes an identifying path to the data item, and wherein the indicator includes a representative portion of the data item; based on the selected indicator, accessing the data item from the secondary storage device via the identifying path; copying the data item to the primary storage device; and removing, from the primary storage device, the indicator associated with the copied data item; wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting an electronic mail message having a header field of the data item, wherein the header field includes at least two of a sender field, a recipient field, a subject field, a time field, and a date field.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting the indicator associated with the data item in response to a manual user input, wherein the indicator is not modifiable by the user, wherein selecting the indicator includes accessing a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) link included in the indicator, and wherein accessing the UNC link includes parsing a tag or other parsable identifier encoded within the indicator, wherein the tag or other parsable identifier identifies the indicator.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting the indicator associated with the data item in response to a manual user input, and, wherein selecting the indicator includes accessing a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) link included in the indicator.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting a data object having a same data structure as the data item.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the indicator includes selecting an electronic mail message having a new message body that replaces a message body included within the data item, wherein the new message body is a subset of the message body of the data item.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein accessing the data item from the secondary storage device via the identifying path includes accessing at least one of an electronic message and an attachment to the electronic message, wherein the identifying path identifies a location of the data item in the secondary storage device.

7. A computer-implemented method for moving data items between servers, the method comprising: extracting data items stored in a secondary storage device associated with a first server; transferring the extracted data items into a primary storage device associated with the first server, wherein indicators associated with the data items stored in the secondary storage device are stored in the primary storage device, wherein the indicators include identifying paths to the data items and representative portions of the data items, and wherein the primary and secondary storage devices are coupled via a network; deleting the indicators from the primary storage device associated with the first server; and moving the data items from the primary storage device associated with the first server to a primary storage device associated with a second server.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the secondary server to a secondary storage device of the second server; and creating in the primary storage device associated with the second server further indicators that identify paths to the data items in the secondary storage device of the second server, wherein the further indicators include representative portions of the data items, wherein copying the data items includes copying directory services entries to the secondary storage device of the second server, wherein attributes and properties of the directory services entries are included in the further indicators stored in the primary storage device associated with the second server.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising: copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the secondary server to a secondary storage device of the second server; and wherein copying the data items from the primary storage of the second server to the secondary storage includes storing the directory services entries in separate files that adhere to an LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format) format.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein the data items are electronic mail messages for an electronic mail box for a user and wherein the transferring is done based on an age-based storage policy.

11. The method of claim 7 , further comprising copying the data items from the primary storage device associated with the second server to the secondary storage device occurs in response to directory services entries satisfying one or more retention criteria, wherein the retention criteria is a defined branch of a directory tree, one or more defined directory services entries, or one or more defined attributes of the directory services entries.

12. A computer-implementable method for retrieving a portion of an original electronic mail message, wherein the portion is archived in secondary storage, the method comprising: displaying a graphical user interface of an electronic mail message stub stored in a primary information storage device, wherein the stub has replaced the original electronic mail message in the primary storage device, and, wherein the graphical user interface comprises: header fields of the original electronic mail message, including at least two of sender, recipient, subject, time, and date of the original electronic mail message; a message indicating that the portion of the original electronic mail message has been archived; and, a link to the portion of the original electronic mail message that is archived, wherein the link comprises an identifying path to the portion in a secondary storage device; and, restoring the portion of the original electronic mail message from the secondary storage device to the primary storage device in response to a user selecting the link, wherein the primary storage device and secondary storage device are coupled via a network.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein restoring the portion of the original electronic mail message further comprises: accessing the portion of the original electronic mail message from the secondary storage device via the identifying path; copying the portion of the original electronic mail message to the primary storage device; and, removing, from the primary storage device, the link to the portion of the original electronic mail message.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the portion of the original electronic mail message is an attachment to the original electronic mail message.

15. The method of claim 12 , wherein the link is a Universal Naming Convention path that cannot be modified by a user.

16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user locating the electronic mail message stub via a full-text search function provided by an electronic mail server.

17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user selecting the electronic mail message stub from a backup system console browser.

18. The method of claim 12 , wherein the primary storage device is browsable, and wherein the graphical user interface is displayed in response to a user manually selecting the electronic mail message stub from the browsable primary storage device.

19. A computer-implementable method for managing electronic mail data, the method comprising: identifying a stub, in a first information storage device, that has replaced an archived electronic mail object that has been moved to a secondary storage device, wherein the identified stub comprises an identifying path to the archived electronic mail object in the secondary storage device; and, wherein the archived electronic mail object is an archived electronic mail message, an archived body of an electronic mail message, or an archived attachment to an electronic mail message, wherein the first information storage device and the secondary storage device are coupled via a network; retrieving a copy of the archived electronic mail object from the secondary storage device by providing the identifying path to a media agent; storing the retrieved copy of the archived electronic mail object in the first information store; deleting the identified stub from the first information store; and, moving the stored copy of the archived electronic mail object from the first information storage device to a second information storage device.